Go ahead, take a moment to clap for me. I know you’re impressed! Frankly, so am I.I planned ahead for this morning. First of all, if I was going to get up early, I would need a good night’s sleep, right? So I took the following steps to ensure good sleep:

2. I took a shower.Now this may not seem like a lot, but it definitely helped! The pillows were luxurious, and much more supportive than my old ones. I used some of this body wash in the shower, which smells simultaneously soapy and relaxing, and I felt absolutely blissful as I lay in bed afterwards. True, I didn’t fall asleep right away, but it was still really nice!

What I DIDN’T do that I need to to help with sleep is inflate my mattress. We have one of those Select Comfort mattresses, and the tube on mine isn’t connected to the motor (I never bothered to reconnect it when we moved). The problem is that I keep my mattress seriously deflated, and it’s not good for my back. I’m starting to sleep on my back instead of my side or stomach, since it’s better for me, and I definitely need a firmer mattress for that!

I also knew that it would be really hard to get up this morning, so here are the steps I took last night to prepare for that:

1. I laid my jogging pants and socks beside the bed.
2. I hung up my clothes for the day on the back of my door
3. I made some orange juice

My main things that keep me in bed or send me back to it in the morning when I had intended to get up are:

1. Deciding I can get ready in less time – oh, I don’t really NEED a shower… ZZZ
2. Being too cold – I don’t want to walk across the room with no pants on… ZZZ
3. Pillow lust – those pillows look SOOO soft… I’ll just lay my head down for one moment… ZZZ
4. Grogginess – The girls are down for a nap… I think I’ll go lie down… ZZZ

So I had a plan for each one! I took my shower beforehand so that I couldn’t use the “I can sleep another half-hour” excuse. My jogging pants by the bed prevented the cold excuse. I made my bed right after I got up to prevent the pillow excuse, and I made the orange juice because it perks me up real well, to help with the groggy excuse! And they all worked pretty well!

I found this post and this post online a few weeks back, and I’m excited to try his methods! I think I’ll spend a little bit of time “practicing” today and see if it helps. I am also planning to consistently get up at 6am every day.

Wish me luck! And if you have any suggestions for me, be sure and leave them in the comments section!

Good for you! My kids have to get up at 8am for school & I can barely manage to pull myself out of bed at 7:55. I really need to work on getting myself up earlier. Over the Xmas vacation I was sleeping in till noon & the summer I do as well. If I didn’t have kid, I think I’d need to work a midnight shift, I am totally a night owl!

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